Archive for October, 2011

Is Goldman Sachs Poised to Takeover Europe?

Goldman Sachs is about to take over Europe, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the papers.

On Tuesday, G-Sax alum, Mario Draghi, will take the helm at the European Central Bank replacing retiring ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet. The appointment has slipped by the media virtually unnoticed even though the ECB is the most powerful institution in the EU and is likely to play a critical role in solving the debt crisis.

Draghi was formally a Managing Director at Goldman. He also served as an advisor to the Bank of Italy in 1990, chairman of the Italian Committee for Privatisations, and was an Executive Director of The World Bank from 1984 to 1990. His bio. affirms his globalist pedigree which makes him the perfect candidate to replace the curmudgeonly Trichet who failed to comply with all of Big Finance’s demands. That’s not likely to be the case with Draghi.

Full Story Here: Is Goldman Sachs Poised to Takeover Europe? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The Secret List Of 14 Words That Republicans Are Never Supposed To Use

At the very back of the now leaked Republican manual from Frank Luntz are 14 terms that Republicans are never supposed to use, and some of the words on the list may surprise you.

The leaked Republican manual is the entire framework which Republicans have been using for years to frame issues and win debates. Although it was written in 2006, much of the Luntz gospel is still not only in use, but is repeated verbatim daily by the GOP members of Congress and the candidates who are running for the 2012 nomination.

Here is the entire manual:

Full Story Here: The Secret List Of 14 Words That Republicans Are Never Supposed To Use.

Hartmann: Conversations with Great Minds – David Korten, The Great Turning.

For tonight’s Conversations with Great Minds – Thom is joined by David Korten. David is an economist, author, and former Professor of the Harvard Business School. His political activism has made him a prominent critic of corporate globalization. His 2006 book “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community” argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to a small portion of the population.

Full Story Here: Hartmann: Conversations with Great Minds – David Korten, The Great Turning. P1 – YouTube.

PArt 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoACQjnC1kw

Federal judge orders TN to stop arresting Occupy Nashville protesters for curfew violation

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order today requiring the state to stop enforcing a hastily drawn up policy that set a curfew for gatherings at Legislative Plaza and resulted in about 50 arrests of Occupy Nashville protesters.

Local attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed a lawsuit this morning against Gov. Bill Haslam and other state officials and requested a temporary restraining order to prevent any further arrests. U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger granted the request. The state did not object to the restraining order and agreed to work out its differences with protesters.

After tolerating the protest for three weeks, Haslam approved a crackdown on demonstrators last week, citing safety and sanitation concerns at the plaza. The state instituted a new use policy for Legislative Plaza that included a curfew and permit requirements.

Full Story Here: Federal judge orders TN to stop arresting Occupy Nashville protesters for curfew violation | The Tennessean | tennessean.com.

Big Oil’s Scary Haul: $100 Billion And Counting

The combined profits of the Big Five oil companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron — has already exceeded $100 billion this year. Tabulated by Oil Change International’s Ross Hammond, the profits from the first three quarters of 2011 are a combined $102.85 billion, much of it plowed into stock buybacks and outrageous executive compensation, taken at the gas pump from hardworking American families. The Big Five are on track to rake in more than $140 billion over the year, as they benefit from billions of dollars of government subsidies.

Full Story Here: Big Oil’s Scary Haul: $100 Billion And Counting | ThinkProgress.

Perry’s Tax Plan Would Cost More Than $500 Billion A Year While Increasing Taxes On Most Of The Middle-Class

2012 GOP presidential hopeful and Texas Gov. Rick Perry released a tax plan last week that would institute a 20 percent “flat tax,” while giving taxpayers the option of continuing to use the current tax code and all of its deductions and credits. Perry claims that he will be able to balance the budget while making the tax code simpler and fairer.

We already knew that Perry’s plan is the epitome of complicated and unfair, as it layers a new tax code on top of the old, and makes the new code incredibly advantageous to the wealthy by entirely exempting investment income from any taxation at all. And according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, Perry’s plan would blow a gigantic hole in the deficit, while increasing taxes for those at the lowest end of the income scale.

In fact, compared to a current policy baseline (where tax revenue is already at historic lows), Perry’s plan would cost $570 billion in one single year. That’s more than half a trillion dollars in revenue, or more than 25 percent of the total revenue that will be collected this year.

Full Story Here: Perry’s Tax Plan Would Cost More Than $500 Billion A Year While Increasing Taxes On Most Of The Middle-Class | ThinkProgress.

Report: Internet privacy tools ineffective for most people

Research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University has backed up the Federal Trade Commission’s call for a “Do Not Track” registry for Internet users.

The study found that Internet users who want to protect their privacy by preventing advertisers from tracking their online behavior will have difficulty doing so with commonly available “opt-out” tools. It also described the current approach for advertising industry self-regulation as “fundamentally flawed.”

“The status quo clearly is insufficient to empower people to protect their privacy from [online behavioral advertising] companies,” said Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS). “A lot of effort is being put into creating these tools to help consumers, but it will all be wasted — and people will be left vulnerable — unless a greater emphasis is placed on usability.”

Full Story Here: Report: Internet privacy tools ineffective for most people | The Raw Story.

Judge blocks restrictions on ‘Occupy Nashville’ protest

A federal judge Monday afternoon ordered Tennessee to stop enforcing new rules that restricted “Occupy Nashville” demonstrators’ ability to protest in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN).

“The state cannot arbitrarily create restrictive policies just because it does not like how people are using a public space,” said ACLU-TN Legal Director Tricia Herzfeld. “Today’s decision is the first step in restoring demonstrators’ free speech rights.”

The protesters had been camped at Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville to protest the economic and political consolidation of power since October 9.

Full Story Here: Judge blocks restrictions on ‘Occupy Nashville’ protest | The Raw Story.

The Question OWS Hears Most: ‘What’s Your Agenda?’

The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others.

It’s as if the movement won’t be taken seriously by some, unless and until, it enunciates list of “demands” and defines itself in a way that can allow others, especially a cynical media, to label and pigeonhole it.

Many are just frothing at the mouth for some political positions they can expose as shallow or absurd. Teams of pundits are being primed to go on the attack once they have some bullet points to refute.

(Many police departments don’t need bullet points to go on the attack. They have been having a field day arresting occupiers in many cities, while collecting overtime and readying their own bullets as needed.)

Full Story Here: The Question OWS Hears Most: ‘What’s Your Agenda?’ | Common Dreams.

Another Weapon for OWS: Pull Your Money Out of BofA

Matt Taibbi :-:

My good friend Nomi Prins has a great new piece out that I just caught on Zero Hedge, chronicling 10 reasons why depositors should pull out of Bank of America.

Obviously Goldman, Sachs has become the great symbol of investment banking corruption, and other companies like AIG and Countrywide have become poster children for problems with businesses like insurance and mortgage-lending. But when it comes to commercial banking, Bank of America is as bad as it gets.

The markets, of course, have lately come to agree, as B of A has lately been downgraded again to just above junk status. The only reason the bank is not rated even lower than that is that it is Too Big To Fail. The whole world knows that if Bank of America implodes – whether because of the vast number of fraud suits it faces for mortgage securitization practices, or because of the time bomb of toxic assets on its balance sheets – the U.S. government will probably step in to one degree or another and save it.

Full Story Here: Another Weapon for OWS: Pull Your Money Out of BofA | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

Frank Rich: The Class War Has Begun

And the very classlessness of our society makes the conflict more volatile, not less.

During the death throes of Herbert Hoover’s presidency in June 1932, desperate bands of men traveled to Washington and set up camp within view of the Capitol. The first contingent journeyed all the way from Portland, Oregon, but others soon converged from all over—alone, in groups, with families—until their main Hooverville on the Anacostia River’s fetid mudflats swelled to a population as high as 20,000. The men, World War I veterans who could not find jobs, became known as the Bonus Army—for the modest government bonus they were owed for their service. Under a law passed in 1924, they had been awarded roughly $1,000 each, to be collected in 1945 or at death, whichever came first. But they didn’t want to wait any longer for their pre–New Deal entitlement—especially given that Congress had bailed out big business with the creation of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation earlier in its session. Father Charles Coughlin, the populist “Radio Priest” who became a phenomenon for railing against “greedy bankers and financiers,” framed Washington’s double standard this way: “If the government can pay $2 billion to the bankers and the railroads, why cannot it pay the $2 billion to the soldiers?”

Full Story Here: Frank Rich on Occupy Wall Street and Class Warfare — New York Magazine.

A Master Class in Occupation

Jon Friesen, 27, tall and lanky with a long, dirty-blond ponytail, a purple scarf and an old green fleece, is sitting on concrete at the edge of Zuccotti Park leading a coordination meeting, a gathering that takes place every morning with representatives of each of Occupy Wall Street’s roughly 40 working groups.

“Our conversation is about what it means to be a movement and what it means to be an organization,” he says to the circle. A heated discussion follows, including a debate over whether the movement should make specific demands.

I find him afterward on a low stone wall surrounding a flowerbed in the park. He decided to come to New York City, he said, from the West Coast for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. He found a ride on Craig’s List while staying at his brother’s home in Champaign, Ill.

Full Story Here: A Master Class in Occupation | Common Dreams.

Never Underestimate the Value of Just Showing Up

In response to “Beyond Occupy” in today’s NY Times:

Dear Bill Keller,

I was surprised and pleased to see that on your recent trip to India, you made time to talk with the social activist Anna Hazare–or at least, with a member of his team, since the great man himself, “exhausted by his latest hunger strike and weary of the media melodramas that have bedeviled his team,” had just “announced that he had taken an indefinite ‘vow of silence.’”

Obviously you didn’t think much of this as a tactic for activism, but you went ahead and talked to his associate, a woman, “Kiran Bedi, who battled for reforms as India’s first policewoman before joining Hazare.”

Despite this conversation, and despite the name of Hazare’s organization, Team Anna, you came away from this encounter with the impression that the movement is dependent on the personal charismatic leadership of Mr. Hazare. You also noted approvingly that Hazare is “always very explicit about his objectives”–he makes specific, winnable demands.

Full Story Here: Never Underestimate the Value of Just Showing Up | Common Dreams.

It’s the 1% Doctrine, Stupid

The Failure of the “I Got Mine – and Yours, Too” Theory of Governance, And What’s Next?

As week seven of Occupy Wall Street dawns, much of the media and the establishment continue to act as if everything about the protests were an ineffable mystery.

Well, it’s really not that mysterious. To paraphrase James Carville yet again, it’s the 1% Doctrine, Stupid.

When 75% of the people support raising taxes on the rich, but their elected “representatives” won’t represent them, what else can people do, but take their grievances to the streets?  And this is no isolated case: on issue after issue, elected “representatives” are ignoring the people’s wishes, choosing to represent the ultra-rich and corporations instead.

When government gives banks and Wall Street some $12.8 trillion  of the taxpayer’s hard-earned money in direct funds, guarantees and near zero interest loans, and the fat cats turn around and spend it on bonuses and high-risk investments rather than fixing the real economy for the 99% who have been affected, don’t ask why people are angry.  Especially when not a single bankster or speculator has been busted for a plethora of real crimes, while people lose their homes to improperly documented foreclosures.

Full Story Here: It’s the 1% Doctrine, Stupid | Common Dreams.

Bill Moyers on a Democracy in Shambles: “Money First, People Second… If At All”

Keynote Address at Public Citizen’s 40th Anniversary Gala

Video……

Full Story Here: Bill Moyers on a Democracy in Shambles: “Money First, People Second… If At All” | Common Dreams.

Supreme Court Looks At Plea Bargain Advice: How Much Bad Lawyering Is Allowed?

When Anthony Cooper shot a fleeing woman in the thigh and buttocks back in 2003, his lawyer advised him to reject the prosecution’s deal because those below-the-waist wounds would shield him from any suggestion he tried to kill her. The advice was absurd.

The question before the Supreme Court on Monday morning was whether it was absurd enough to violate Cooper’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

The facts of Lafler v. Cooper are straightforward enough: Michigan prosecutors offered Cooper a lower sentence in exchange for his pleading guilty to assault with intent to murder. His lawyer told him to reject the deal, and he did. At trial, Cooper was convicted and received a stiffer sentence than the one initially offered by prosecutors.

Full Story Here: Supreme Court Looks At Plea Bargain Advice: How Much Bad Lawyering Is Allowed?.

White House Rejects Petition To Legalize Marijuana

The White House has rejected several marijuana legalization petitions, one of which called on the federal government to stop interfering with state marijuana legalization efforts.

“As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem,” wrote Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, in a statement released late on Friday. “We also recognize that legalizing marijuana would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use.”

The statement came in response to a petition submitted by retired Baltimore narcotics officer Neill Franklin as part of the White House’s “We The People” project, an effort to allow ordinary Americans to gain the attention of policymakers through an online portal at the White House website. Any petition garnering 5,000 signatures within 30 days of submission is guaranteed a response from the White House; Franklin’s petition received more than 17,000.

Full Story Here: White House Rejects Petition To Legalize Marijuana.

What “withdrawal” means for an empire

As troops pull out of Iraq, Obama plans more combat forces elsewhere in the Middle East

Last week here at Salon, we had a good back and forth about whether America is an empire, and why even pondering that question is so taboo. Quite serendipitously, our debate came just before this big report in the New York Times over the weekend:

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait…

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

Indefinite military occupations of resource-rich regions is one of the hallmarks of empire — indeed, if we saw another country do that, we would almost certainly refer to it as an unacceptable imperial move. Of course, the justification of the Obama administration’s announcement doesn’t hew to the standard lexicon of imperialism; it applies our modern newspeak in an attempt to promote the fallacy that the United States acts only out of selfless benevolence.

Full Story Here: What “withdrawal” means for an empire – Iraq war – Salon.com.

Bluff Collapses At Oak Creek Power Station

Geotechnical engineers will be called into investigate what caused an embankment to collapse Monday morning, sending a portion of a bluff to slide into Lake Michigan.

The bluff, located just south of the We Energies Oak Creek power plant, collapsed to the lake around 11:18 a.m.

We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey said that all employees who reported to work Monday morning were accounted for, and that there are no injuries in the incident.

“We’ve checked and double-checked,” Manthey said.

Full Story Here: Bluff Collapses At Oak Creek Power Station – Milwaukee News Story – WISN Milwaukee.

Environmental Group Breaks the Silence on Population Control

Major American environmental groups have dodged the subject of population control for decades, wary of getting caught up in the bruising politics of reproductive health.

Yet, virtually alone, the Center for Biological Diversity is breaking the taboo by directly tying population growth to environmental problems through efforts like giving away condoms in colorful packages depicting endangered animals. The idea is to start a debate about how overpopulation crowds out species and hastens climate change — just when the world is welcoming Baby No.7 Billion.

“Wrap with care, save the polar bear,” reads one of the packages. “Wear a condom now, save the spotted owl,” says another.

Full Story Here: Environmental Group Breaks the Silence on Population Control – NYTimes.com.

Creating Unemployment

How Congressional Budget Decisions Are Putting Americans out of Work and Increasing the Risk of a Second Recession

Most of the nearly 14 million people across our country who are currently unemployed can blame their situation on the inability of Congress and the White House to sufficiently cushion the economy from the financial crisis that began in 2007. But a growing number of unemployed Americans today are the victims of actions taken by the current Congress aimed deliberately at eliminating jobs.

Even worse, many of these jobs are ones that will have to be performed at some point in the next several years and taxpayers will eventually pay the bill. Delaying the work not only sucks jobs out of the weak economy but also in many instances costs the government more money and over time, and serves to increase rather than decrease the public debt. This report examines some of the job-elimination efforts by the current Congress and the growing impact this is having on individuals, families, and communities around the country.

Saving these jobs does not require us to ignore our country’s long-term deficit problems. While nearly all economists believe we should decisively reduce the amount we are scheduled to borrow over the next decade, a large majority of those same economists believe that the spending cuts and revenue increases necessary to reduce the deficits should be agreed to now but not executed until there is substantial steam in the economic recovery. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently warned the Joint Economic Committee, it is important to “avoid fiscal actions that could impede the ongoing economic recovery, putting in place a credible plan for reducing future deficits over the longer term does not preclude attending to the implications of fiscal choices for the recovery in the near term.” That is advice that the new majority party in the House of Representatives has been unwilling to take.

Full Story Here: Creating Unemployment.

Conservatives Have A Different Idea: Tax The Poor

The nation’s ongoing economic downturn has sparked an odd response from a growing number of conservative and Republican leaders: a desire to blame the unfortunate and a demand for the poor to pay more.

With the economy in its deepest crater since the Great Depression and the GOP pushed by the aggressively anti-tax Tea Party, the call to have the middle and working classes help the rich has reached levels not heard since Reagan-era attacks on the mythical “welfare queens.”

It’s most often expressed in the growing complaint that about half the nation’s households pay no federal income tax — an accurate figure that varies from 46 percent to 51 percent, depending on which set of statistics are being used.

Full Story Here: Tax The Poor: Forget Occupy Wall Street, Conservatives Have A Different Idea.

Cops caught infiltrating the Occupy movement

Sign this petition to get money out of politics for good: http://www.getmoneyout.com/

Full Story Here: Cops caught infiltrating the Occupy movement – YouTube.

Washington Post Discards All Journalistic Standards In Attack on Social Security

News outlets generally like to claim a separation between their editorial pages and their news pages. The Washington Post has long ignored this distinction in pursuing its agenda for cutting Social Security, however it took a big step further in tearing down this barrier with a lead front page story that would have been excluded from most opinion pages because of all the inaccuracies it contained.

The basic premise of the story, as expressed in the headline (“the debt fallout: how Social Security went ‘cash negative’ earlier than expected”) and the first paragraph (“Last year, as a debate over the runaway national debt gathered steam in Washington, Social Security passed a treacherous milestone. It went ‘cash negative.’”) is that Social Security faces some sort of crisis because it is paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes. [The "runaway national debt" is also a Washington Post invention. The deficits have soared in recent years because of the economic downturn following the collapse of the housing bubble. No responsible newspaper would discuss this as problem of the budget as opposed to a problem with a horribly underemployed economy.]

This “treacherous milestone” is entirely the Post’s invention, it has absolutely nothing to do with the law that governs Social Security benefit payments. Under the law, as long as their is money in the trust fund, then Social Security is able to pay full benefits. There is literally no other possible interpretation of the law.

Full Story Here: Washington Post Discards All Journalistic Standards In Attack on Social Security | Beat the Press.

Russia’s Progress M-13M Cargo Ship Launched To International Space Station

A Russian cargo ship was launched successfully to the International Space Station on Sunday, clearing the way for the next manned mission and easing concerns about the station’s future after a previous failed launch.

The unmanned Progress M-13M blasted off as scheduled at 2:11 p.m. Moscow time (1011 GMT; 6:11 a.m. EDT) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.

“It was a perfect launch,” Lyndin told The Associated Press, adding the ship successfully reached a designated orbit and will dock at the station Wednesday. A new crew will be launched to the space outpost on Nov. 14, he said.

Full Story Here: Russia’s Progress M-13M Cargo Ship Launched To International Space Station.

Richard Muller, Koch Backed Global Warming Denier, Now Agrees Climate Change Is Real

A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of “Climategate,” a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

Full Story Here: Richard Muller, Global Warming Skeptic, Now Agrees Climate Change Is Real.

ES&S Attempts to Block PA County’s Independent Audit of Failed Touch-Screens

After no objections previously, the nation’s largest e-voting company attempts to kibosh computer scientists’ forensic examination in Venango County, PA…

Despite failing to object for months prior, the nation’s largest electronic voting system vendor, ES&S, is now attempting to stop a landmark independent examination of their e-voting systems in a Pennsylvania county dead in its tracks.

An October letter from the company, obtained by The BRAD BLOG, charges that Venango County, PA, is in violation of their contract agreements with the Omaha-based e-voting Goliath, even as two volunteer Carnegie Mellon computer scientists are in the midst of a forensic audit of the county’s May 17 primary election. The county’s investigation comes on the heels of apparent failures of the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system during their recent primary and several other recent elections in Venango.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : EXCLUSIVE: ES&S Attempts to Block PA County’s Independent Audit of Failed Touch-Screens.

Congresswoman to attempt to live on $4.50/day food budget

California Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier has announced that for a week, she will attempt to live on the same amount of money allotted to recipients of SNAP, the California food stamp program. San Francisco’s Channel 7 news reports that SNAP (which stands for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) provided $136.75 per person each month during fiscal year 2010, which breaks down to a food budget of $4.50 per day.

Rep. Speier, who represents San Francisco and San Mateo, is adopting a food budget shared by some 3.6 million Californians who rely on SNAP for food assistance. SNAP funds can be used to pay for breads and cereals, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, fruits and vegetables, but not items like alcohol, cigarettes, or other tobacco products.

Full Story Here: Congresswoman to attempt to live on $4.50/day food budget | The Raw Story.

VIDEO: As Republicans Spread ‘Politics Of Division,’ They Hypocritically Accuse Opponents Of Doing The Same

Over the last few weeks, Republicans have begun decrying the “politics of division” supposedly emanating from the White House and Occupy Wall Street, climaxing with Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday. Clearly, these Republicans suffer from some memory loss, or a lack of self-awareness, or both. For some time now, these same people crying about “pitting Americans against Americans” have been enthusiastically labeling various people or groups in American politics as enemies, painting political disagreements as stark divisions over morality and worldview, and describing the Obama administration and Democrats as destructive, tyrannical, and un-American. ThinkProgress has the video report. Watch it:

Full Story Here: VIDEO: As Republicans Spread ‘Politics Of Division,’ They Hypocritically Accuse Opponents Of Doing The Same | ThinkProgress.

Chrysler CEO Says Company’s Two-Class Wage System Has To Go

The head of Chrysler said Friday that the carmaker’s two-class wage system has to go, potentially setting the stage for a fight over wages when all three U.S. automakers and their largest union head back to negotiating tables in 2015.

Sergio Marchionne said Chrysler eventually needs to transition to a one-wage structure and wants to make that happen in its next contract with the United Auto Workers union.

Marchionne said the current system creates two classes of workers, which as more bottom-tier workers are hired will only serve to divide the automaker’s blue collar ranks. New workers in the bottom tier make about half as much money as longtime UAW members.

“When you’ve got this kind of economic disparity between people on the line, it’s not something that can go on for a long period of time,” Marchionne told analysts and reporters in a conference call following the release of Chrysler’s quarterly results.

Full Story Here: Chrysler CEO Says Company’s Two-Class Wage System Has To Go.

Republican Lawmakers Spin Funding Tall Tales

It’s an outrageous tale: The federal government spends one out of every $10 in transportation aid on wasteful projects such as refurbishing a giant roadside coffee pot and constructing turtle tunnels.

That’s what Republican lawmakers have said repeatedly in recent weeks in the Senate, in public appearances and in news releases. They are trying to eliminate a requirement that states use a portion of their highway aid for “transportation enhancements,” 12 categories of projects from bike and walking paths to scenic overlooks and landscaping.

But it’s not exactly true.

To make their case, lawmakers have exaggerated and misrepresented some projects that have received aid.

Full Story Here: Republican Lawmakers Spin Funding Tall Tales.

Obama Administration Escalates Confrontation With Iran: Why?

Mark Weisbrot :-:

The Obama Administration announced two weeks ago that a bumbling Iranian-American used car salesman had conspired with a U.S. government agent posing as a representative of Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. This brought highly skeptical reactions from experts here across the political spectrum.

But even if some of this tale turns out to be true, the handling of such accusations is inherently political. For example, the U.S. government’s 9/11 commission investigated the links between the attackers and the Saudi ruling family, but refused to make public the results of that investigation. The reason is obvious: There is dirt there and Washington doesn’t want to create friction with a key ally. And keep in mind that this is about complicity with an attack on American soil that killed 3,000 people.

By contrast, the Obama Administration seized upon the rather dubious speculation that “the highest levels of the Iranian government” were involved in this alleged plot. President Obama announced that “all options are on the table,” which is well-known code for possible military action. This is extremist and dangerous rhetoric.

Full Story Here: Obama Administration Escalates Confrontation With Iran: Why? | Op-Eds & Columns.

G20 Urged to Adopt Transaction Tax, Address Food Security

Groups Urge G20 Not to Ignore Development Agenda 

Global development groups on Friday called on G20 leaders to step up to their commitments to tackle global food security and come up with new ways to boost world growth that also benefit the poorest.

With Europe’s sovereign debt crisis set to dominate the G20 summit on November 3-4 in Cannes, France, there is concern leaders will avoid firm decisions to address increased global food price volatility and new ways to finance development.

“The challenge for the G20 is can they see beyond the immediate crisis to what is needed to ensure broader prosperity,” said Samuel Worthington who heads InterAction, an alliance of U.S. based international development groups.

Full Story Here: Groups Urge G20 Not to Ignore Development Agenda | Common Dreams.

How to Switch Banks on Bank Transfer Day

To protest the behavior of big banks, thousands have pledged to switch to small credit unions on November 5. Follow these steps to simplify the process.

Bank Transfer Day is gaining some serious steam. Although it’s not technically affiliated with Occupy, it’s being embraced by the movement and is the first specific call to action since the Occupy protests began.

The description and goal of Bank Transfer Day is straightforward: If you currently have checking and savings accounts (deposit accounts) with a big bank, the organizers encourage you to remove all of your funds, close your accounts, and place your money in a new deposit account with a not-for-profit credit union. The organizers ask that you do this by November 5. And since November 5 is a Saturday, you should definitely do it before November 5 since many big banks aren’t open on weekends.

Full Story Here: How to Switch Banks on Bank Transfer Day — YES! Magazine.

Prosecutions going up for war zone crime

A Marine in Iraq sent home $43,000 in stolen cash by hiding it in a footlocker among American flags. A soldier shipped thousands more concealed in a toy stuffed animal, and an embassy employee tricked the State Department into wiring $240,000 into his foreign bank account.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the number of people indicted and convicted by the U.S. for bribery, theft and other reconstruction-related crimes in both countries is rapidly rising, according to two government reports released Sunday.

“This is a boom industry for us,” Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, or SIGIR, said in an interview.

“Investigators and auditors had a productive quarter,” said a report on the theft of Afghanistan aid by Steven Trent, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR. The report covered August through October.

Full Story Here: Excite News – Reports: Prosecutions going up for war zone crime.

U.S. Plans Post-Iraq Troop Increase in Persian Gulf

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

The plans, under discussion for months, gained new urgency after President Obama’s announcement this month that the last American soldiers would be brought home from Iraq by the end of December. Ending the eight-year war was a central pledge of his presidential campaign, but American military officers and diplomats, as well as officials of several countries in the region, worry that the withdrawal could leave instability or worse in its wake.

After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative.

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

Full Story Here: U.S. Plans Post-Iraq Troop Increase in Persian Gulf – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Like the man said: It ain’t over, till it’s over

Perry’s Cornerstone Speech Highlights

Is he drunk or High?

Perry’s Cornerstone Speech Highlights – YouTube.

Maddow: Mr Wolowitz, Shut Your Pie Hole

Mr WRONG, about EVERYTHING!

Video

Full Story Here: Rachel Maddow Quite enough from Mr. Wolfowitz – YouTube.

Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Minstry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned in Hungary. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.

Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been ground with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seek traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.

Full Story Here: Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields | Natural Society.

Maxine Waters (D-CA) has introduced a bill to repeal the supercommittee

House Democrats Upset With Supercommittee Negotiations |

As we’ve been reporting, Democrats on the supercommittee—led by Senator Max Baucus—are pursuing a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction, which would include tax increases, spending cuts, a new round of economic stimulus and steep cuts to both Medicare and Social Security. Republicans have rejected the deal in favor of their own, which basically includes all of the cuts and does not include tax increases nor stimulus spending.

But several Democratic members of the House are increasingly upset with how supercommittee Democrats are carrying out the negotiations, and are threatening to vote against a package that includes deep cuts to the safety net. Some are even planning an attempt to get rid of the supercommittee altogether.

Representative Maxine Waters of California has introduced a bill to repeal the supercommittee, and the $1.2 trillion in cuts it’s mandated to make. She believes the committee is “illegitimate” and “borders on unconstitutional.”

Full Story Here: House Democrats Upset With Supercommittee Negotiations | The Nation.

THIS IS HUGE! AFL-CIO is urging members to support and JOIN Occupy Wall Street!

How serious are the leaders of my union about supporting Occupy Wall Street? I found the emphatic answer was in my inbox:

Occupy Wall Street protests continue to spread across the country. Outrage against an economy stacked against the 99% is growing. And the media is paying attention. Finally, our national debate has shifted from austerity and cuts to jobs, inequality and our broken economic system.

But Congress still isn’t listening to the 99%. Policies continue to fail the 99% and reward the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

Last Thursday, it happened again: Senate Republicans once again blocked progress for workers with a political maneuver, filibustering the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act. It didn’t get a vote at all. Justice for the 99% once again was delayed.

If Congress won’t represent the 99%, then we clearly need to put our anger into action and stand together. Let’s build a movement that is strong enough that our elected officials will have no choice but to start addressing the needs of the 99%.

If you can’t join protesters on the ground, one way to make your voice heard is to send a message of solidarity.

Your message of solidarity—which will be delivered by Working America—will go a long way to energize the protesters who are camping out in the rain and cold. And it only takes a moment to write.

It’s even better if you can join an Occupy event yourself. Since the protests are a truly organic movement, and aren’t organized by the AFL-CIO, we can’t tell you exactly what will be happening when you arrive. But what we can tell you is this: The more people who can stand in solidarity, the better. Once you join your local protest, you can find ways to get involved. Check out this map of protests.

We’ll continue to urge Congress to do what’s right on jobs, despite setbacks and obstacles.

But in addition to directly communicating with Congress, each of us has to do his or her part to change our national conversation if we’re going to move America forward.

One easy but powerful way to do that right now is to show support for activists who are keeping the Occupy movement going.

If you’re able, we hope you’ll also join an Occupy event in your area. And stay tuned for more ways to make your voice heard on and offline in the coming weeks.

Let’s keep standing together—we are the 99%.

In Solidarity,

Manny Herrmann

Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

All emphasis and links are from the original.

Full Story Here: Daily Kos: THIS IS HUGE! AFL-CIO is urging members to support and JOIN Occupy Wall Street!.

How the Bitter Elitists at Fox News Keep Trying — And Failing — to Dampen Support for Occupy Wall Street

Another day, another Fox News attempt to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement. This time they’ve resurrected their favorite bogeyman, ACORN.

Another day, another Fox News attempt to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Fox News has been feverishly trying to dampen the viral growth of OWS ever since the movement sprouted in a park in Lower Manhattan about a month ago. Fox’s overt hostility is in sharp contrast to the love affair they had with the Tea Party. Now Fox is slandering decent and passionate protesters as communists, whining about class war, comparing them to hippies, accusing them of violence, and associating them with Nazis. All of these attacks have collapsed from the weight of their own dishonesty, and support continues to grow for the movement. But does that stop Fox News?

Of course not. Their determination to crush this populist uprising is fueled by a cabal of bitter elitists with deep pockets. Rupert Murdoch’s pals on Wall Street have no intention of sitting still while they are asked to be accountable for their chicanery. So yesterday Fox’s Megyn Kelly featured a story based on an article at FoxNews.com with a provocative headline: EXCLUSIVE: Ex-ACORN Operatives Behind the Scene of “Occupy” Protests.

Full Story Here: How the Bitter Elitists at Fox News Keep Trying — And Failing — to Dampen Support for Occupy Wall Street | Media | AlterNet.

Why are Bikes Being Targeted by Congress?

How in the the world can biking and walking be controversial?

They’re good exercise, fun to do and—as an alternative to driving everywhere—help us save money and the environment. Both biking and walking are increasingly popular for transportation and recreation today, thanks in large part to a recent flowering of federally-funded trails, bikeways and pathways that make getting around on two wheels and two feet safer and more convenient.

But in these antagonistic political times, bikers and walkers are now targets of controversy for some members of Congress. In September, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn proposed stripping all designated federal funding for bike and pedestrian projects from the pending Transportation Bill. After an outpouring of opposition from citizens coast-to-coast, Coburn withdrew his amendment.

Now bicyclists and pedestrians are under attack again, this time in an amendment from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. He wants to redirect every last penny of money dedicated to bicycling and walking to bridge repair instead.

Full Story Here: Shareable: Why are Bikes Being Targeted by Congress?.

400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use: Americans Are Disempowered — Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression?

Is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400 percent in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44. Among Americans 12 years and older, 11 percent were taking antidepressants by 2005-2008 (the most recently reported study period), and 23 percent of women ages 40–59 years were taking them.

Why has U.S. antidepressant use skyrocketed? Are the symptoms of what is commonly called depression—helplessness, hopelessness, and immobilization—always evidence of a medical condition? Or is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

Full Story Here: 400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use: Americans Are Disempowered — Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression? | Drugs | AlterNet.

When Being Rich Makes Us Poor, People Should Occupy Wall Street

Dean Baker : -:

The Very Serious People in Washington are busy trying to find creative ways to cut Social Security and Medicare and take other benefits from middle-class and moderate-income families. The refrain here is that we just can’t afford this level of generosity any more.

There are two parts of this story that should drive the rest of us crazy. And it is difficult to determine which one is the more infuriating.

The first is that we know that many people in this country are fabulously rich. And as Elizabeth Warren beautifully reminded us, none of them did it on their own. But Professor Warren is actually far too generous in her account.

Full Story Here: Dean Baker: When Being Rich Makes Us Poor, People Should Occupy Wall Street.

Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed

Robert Scheer :-:

It is class warfare. But it was begun not by the tear-gassed, rain-soaked protesters asserting their constitutionally guaranteed right of peaceful assembly but rather the financial overlords who control all of the major levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is they who subverted the American ideal of a nation of stakeholders in control of their economic and political destiny.

Between 1979 and 2007, as the Congressional Budget Office reported this week, the average real income of the top 1 percent grew by an astounding 275 percent. And that is after payment of the taxes that the superrich and their Republican apologists find so onerous.

Those three decades of rampant upper-crust greed unleashed by the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s will be well marked by future historians recording the death of the American dream. In that decisive historical period the middle class began to evaporate and the nation’s income gap increased to alarming proportions. “As a result of that uneven growth,” the CBO explained, “the distribution of after-tax household income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979: The share of income accruing to higher-income households increased, whereas the share accruing to other households declined. … The share of after-tax household income for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income more than doubled. …”

Full Story Here: Robert Scheer: Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

Who is the 99 Percent?

Barely a month after the first group of protesters set up its encampment in Zuccotti Park in New York City, the phrase “We are the 99 percent” has already become legendary.

Used throughout the U.S., the expression has come to reference people who share what is left of global wealth after corporate CEOs and the “richest one percent” have pocketed the bulk of global output.

But in a country still highly segregated along race, colour and class lines, the words “99 percent” continue to be points of contention for minorities involved in the movement.

According to a new report released earlier this week by the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI), “Jim Crow still exists today in the (U.S.) job market,” with more black and Latino workers relegated to the realm of “second-class workers, over-represented in low-skill, low-wage occupations with limited chances to move up the ladder of opportunity”.

Full Story Here: Who is the 99 Percent? | Common Dreams.

Kneecapping the Environment

If your child has asthma and it’s getting worse, then news about the White House’s recent retreat on ozone (that is, smog) standards for the air over your city wasn’t exactly cause for cheering. Thank our environmental president for that, but mainly of course the Republicans, who have been out to kneecap the Environmental Protection Agency since the 2010 election results came in. We may be heading for an anything-blows environmental future, even though it couldn’t be more logical to assume that whatever is allowed into the air will sooner or later end up in us.

With a helping hand from that invaluable website Environmental Health News, here’s a little ladleful of examples from the chemical soup that could be not just your air, soil, or water, but you. It’s only a few days’ worth of news reports on what’s in our environment and so, for better or mostly worse, in us: In Dallas-Ft. Worth, there’s lead in the blood of children, thanks to leaded gasoline, banned decades ago, but still in the soil. In New York’s Hudson River, “one of the largest toxic cleanups in U.S. history” (for PCBs in river sediments) is ongoing. Researchers now suspect that those chemicals, already linked to low birth weight, thyroid disease, and learning, memory, and immune system disorders,” are also associated with to high blood pressure. Then there’s mercury, that “potent neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to the developing brains of fetuses and children.” If allowed, it will enter the environment via a proposed open-pit gold and copper mine to be built in Alaska near “one of the world’s premier salmon fisheries.”

Full Story Here: Kneecapping the Environment | Common Dreams.

How the Wounding of a Vet Who Dared to Dissent Stirred a New Wave of Dissent

John Nichols :-:

“We Are All Scott Olsen!” was the message of vigils held across the United States Thursday night, held in answer to a call from Iraq Veterans Against the War and Occupy Oakland for “occupations across America and around the world to hold solidarity vigils” recognizing Olsen, the former Marine and Iraq War veteran who activists say “sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head on October 25 with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland protest.

In cities across the United States and around the world, “We Are Scott Olsen” vigils, rallies and marches were held. Thousands attended a candlelight vigil in Oakland. In Las Vegas, an image of Olsen was projected at the site of the Occupy encampment. In New York, Occupy Wall Street activist took to the streets chanting “New York is Oakland, Oakland is New York.” As far away as London, images of Olsen were displayed at gatherings. The buzz about the wounding of the 24-year-old veteran seemed to be everywhere, and was perhaps best summed up by a message from an activist who had protested at Wisconsin’s state Capitol with Olsen in February. It read: “He could be any one of us.”

The Washington-insider website Politico speculated about whether the wounding of Olsen would be the Occupy movement’s “Kent State moment,” a reference to the 1970 killing of four students at an anti-war demonstration in Ohio. No one was killed in Oakland, and Olsen is now expected to recover, although he remains hospilized and is unable to speak. But the images of the young former Marine, standing peacefully in the frontlines of the protest in Oakland — next to a Navy vet holding a “Veterans for Peace” flag — and the images from just moments later of Olsen lying on the ground wounded as medics rush to his aid have both shocked and energized activists, in much the same way that violent responses to civil rights and anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s did — and in much the way that official violence against anti-WTO activists in Seattle in 1999 shifted sentiment in favor of the protests.

Full Story Here: How the Wounding of a Vet Who Dared to Dissent Stirred a New Wave of Dissent | The Nation.

Watch Out America, Greedy Companies May Be Headed Your Way

A number of Illinois corporations are threatening to leave the state unless their taxes are cut and state government is reduced in size. Governor Quinn and Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel are desperately trying to negotiate peace with Republican leaders, who have proposed a 50% state tax cut for the particularly contentious Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board Options Exchange. For the rest of us, the state tax rate is up 66%, our biggest city has the highest sales tax in the country, and utility and transportation fees are being increased.

But Illinois corporate taxes are NOT too high, at least for top-earning companies. The rates may be high, but the amounts paid are not. A review of corporate 10-Ks provides the facts. If just 20 large Illinois firms had paid state taxes at the required statutory rate (7.3%) over the past three years, an additional $7.5 billion would have been returned, or about half of the state’s current deficit.

For 20 of the largest Illinois corporations, with a total of $157 billion in net income, only $3.5 billion was paid in total state taxes.

That’s a 2.2% tax rate.

Full Story Here: Watch Out America, Some Greedy Companies May Be Headed Your Way | Common Dreams.

OPS: – Just stop buying their products

Goldman Sachs Sued By Hedge Fund For Knowingly Selling Toxic Mortgage-Backed Investments

A new lawsuit accuses Goldman Sachs of purposely unloading $93 million in mortgage-backed securities it knew to be junk onto a client, then betting against those same securities in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

Basis Yield Alpha Fund, an Australian hedge fund, filed the lawsuit against Goldman Sachs on Thursday, asking for more than $1 billion in damages. The lawsuit alleges that Goldman Sachs overcharged for two sets of mortgage-backed securities that it sold to Basis; lied about the securities’ expected performance; did not provide timely, accurate information about the securities’ true value; and failed to disclose that the firm was actively betting against the securities at the time of the transaction — all which the hedge fund says contributed to its collapse.

“They were lying to clients in order to get junk off their books,” said Eric Lewis, the Washington-based attorney who is leading the Basis Fund’s lawsuit against Goldman. “They were basically selling a time bomb … and what they sold blew up in our face, but what they couldn’t sell blew up in their face.”

Full Story Here: Goldman Sachs Sued By Hedge Fund For Knowingly Selling Toxic Mortgage-Backed Investments.

The World’s Top 9 Countries With The Fastest Internet Speeds

Akamai, a company that collects data about Internet use, says it gets over 1 trillion requests per day to its global server network. It has organized this data into its quarterly “State Of The Internet” report, which examines, among other things, the world’s fastest and slowest Internet connections by country.

In order to be included in the report, a country must have made more than 25,000 requests from unique IP addresses in the last quarter. Akamai sets this bar in order to avoid making unfair comparisons between countries with large disparities in population or infrastructure.

Overall, global Internet speed is improving, accoring to Akamai. Between the first and second quarters of 2011, average global connection speed increased 21 percent and is now 2.6 Megabits per second. By comparison, Internet speeds in the United States (the world’s 12th-ranked country) look fairly speedy at an average of 5.8 Mbps. However, residents in the country with the fastest Internet (see slideshow) enjoy an average connection speed of 13.8 Mbps, more than twice as fast as the U.S.

Full Story Here: The World’s Top 9 Countries With The Fastest Internet Speeds: Akamai.

BofA Likely To Alter Rules For Debit Card Fees After Criticism

Bank of America Corp, after receiving heavy public criticism for a planned $5 per-month debit card fee, is likely to give customers more ways to avoid the fee, a person familiar with the bank’s plans said Friday.

The second largest U.S. bank is likely to allow many customers to avoid the fee by taking measures such as maintaining minimum balances, having paychecks direct deposited, or using Bank of America credit cards, the person said.

Under earlier plans, customers might have needed balances totaling $20,000 across all their Bank of America accounts to avoid the fee.

Full Story Here: BofA Likely To Alter Rules For Debit Card Fees After Criticism.

Occupy Wall Street: Many Cities Leaving Protesters Alone

While more U.S. cities are resorting to force to break up the Wall Street protests, many others – Philadelphia, New York, Minneapolis and Portland, Ore., among them – are content to let the demonstrations go on for now.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, said Friday that the several hundred protesters sleeping in Zuccotti Park, the unofficial headquarters of the movement that began in mid-September, can stay as long as they obey the law.

“I can’t talk about other cities,” he said. “Our responsibilities are protect your rights and your safety. And I think we’re trying to do that. We’re trying to act responsibly and safely.”

Still, the city made life a lot harder for the demonstrators: Fire authorities seized a dozen cans of gasoline and six generators that powered lights, cooking equipment and computers, saying they were safety hazards.

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street: Many Cities Leaving Protesters Alone [LATEST UPDATES].

Report: Democrats’ Super Committee Proposal Is Far To The Right Of All Other ‘Bipartisan’ Compromises

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is out with a damning new analysis of the Democrats’ $3 trillion deficit proposal to the super committee. Republicans have already rejected the plan, despite the fact that it “stands well to the right of plans by the co-chairs of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission and the Senate’s ‘Gang of Six,’ and even further to the right of the plan by the bipartisan Rivlin-Domenici commission,” Robert Greenstein, Richard Kogan, and Paul N. Van de Water argue.

“The Democratic plan contains substantially smaller revenue increases than those bipartisan proposals while, for example, containing significantly deeper cuts in Medicare and Medicaid than the Bowles-Simpson plan,” they point out. Look:

Full Story Here: Report: Democrats’ Super Committee Proposal Is Far To The Right Of All Other ‘Bipartisan’ Compromises | ThinkProgress.

Trent Franks Thinks Marriage Equality Will Destroy Society

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) vehemently opposes LGBT equality at every turn, but today went so far as to call marriage equality “a threat to the nation’s survival.” This fear-mongering rivals that of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern (R), who has repeatedly compared the LGBT community to terrorists. In his comments today to the Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group, he suggested that marriage is a “special right” just for heterosexuals and that somehow marriage equality would eliminate the “launching pad of the next generation,” insinuating that society would die out as a result. Right Wing Watch has the full account:

FRANKS: We understand that when we’re granting the rights of marriage, that that’s a special right Tony, that’s something we have suggested is clearly the best possible way to see children raised through the best possible environment to launch the next generation, we believe that with all of our hearts as a society, I think most people understand that. So we’ve set aside this special area of the law that says we’re going to respect traditional marriage of a man and a woman because that is the launching pad of the next generation. Let’s face it; we have made a special exception in the law that gives special consideration and recognition to that.

Full Story Here: Trent Franks Thinks Marriage Equality Will Destroy Society.

‘StudentsFirst’ Spending $70,000 To Support MI GOP Rep. Who Backed Huge Education Cuts

Earlier this week, Michigan’s Flint Journal reported that Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst has been supporting Michigan GOP Rep. Paul Scott against a potential recall election. Altogether, StudentsFirst has spent and owed $70,000 of political spending on behalf of Scott.

This came as a shock to many, who viewed Rhee’s StudentsFirst as primarily a nonpartisan group dedicated to education reform. By spending tens of thousands of dollars defending Scott, StudentsFirst is drawing a decidedly political line. What’s more, Scott has been a vocal defender of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) economic and education policies, which have lead to significant reductions in the state’s K-12 school aid.

Full Story Here: ‘StudentsFirst’ Spending $70,000 To Support MI GOP Rep. Who Backed Huge Education Cuts | ThinkProgress.

VIDEO: As Republicans Spread ‘Politics Of Division,’ They Hypocritically Accuse Opponents Of Doing The Same

Over the last few weeks, Republicans have begun decrying the “politics of division” supposedly emanating from the White House and Occupy Wall Street, climaxing with Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday. Clearly, these Republicans suffer from some memory loss, or a lack of self-awareness, or both. For some time now, these same people crying about “pitting Americans against Americans” have been enthusiastically labeling various people or groups in American politics as enemies, painting political disagreements as stark divisions over morality and worldview, and describing the Obama administration and Democrats as destructive, tyrannical, and un-American. ThinkProgress has the video report. Watch it:

Full Story Here: VIDEO: As Republicans Spread ‘Politics Of Division,’ They Hypocritically Accuse Opponents Of Doing The Same | ThinkProgress.

It’s Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style

William Greider :-:

The rebellious citizens occupying Wall Street shock some people and inspire others with their denunciations of bankers, but everyone seems to know what they are talking about: it is the barbaric and suffocating behavior of the nation’s largest banks (yes, the same ones the government rescued with public money). Right now, these trillion-dollar institutions are methodically harvesting the last possible pound of flesh from millions of homeowners before kicking these failing debtors out of their homes (the story known as the “foreclosure crisis”). This is a tragedy, of course, for the people who are dispossessed. For the country, it is a generational calamity.

“We are in the reverse New Deal,” Christopher Whalen, a savvy banking expert at Institutional Risk Analytics, told me. He meant that events are dismantling the ingenious engine that helped generate America’s broad middle class. Homeownership was the main driver in accomplishing that great social change. For three generations, people of modest means could buy a house knowing it would secure their place in the middle class and allow them to accumulate significant savings. If the family held the standard thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgage, they were painlessly saving for the future every time they made a payment, acquiring greater equity in the home as they did so. With moderate inflation, the house would steadily increase in value even as their monthly mortgage payments stayed the same. So the cost of housing actually declined for the family, as a percentage of its income. Meanwhile, the accumulating equity became a nest egg for retirement or something to pass on to the kids.

That virtuous process, originated by New Deal reforms, is in peril and has already shut down for tens of millions, especially working-class families whose incomes are no longer rising. As described by the brokerage investment firm Amherst Securities, the housing picture is ugly. Among the 55 million families with mortgages, one in five is underwater—they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth—or already delinquent. That’s 10.4 million families who are sliding toward failure and foreclosure. Virtually all of them will become renters, since no bank is likely to give them a new mortgage.

Full Story Here: It’s Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style | The Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/media_thumbnail_250x158/foreclosurehouse_ap_mthumb_0.jpg

Chicago Traders Mock Protesters: ‘We Are The 1 Percent Paying For This, You Are Paying For 1 Percent Of It’

Today, demonstrators from Occupy Chicago continued to protest economic inequality, undeterred by the arrests of 175 of their members by the city for staying overnight in Grant Park. As demonstrators marched past the Chicago Board of Trade, financial traders above dropped flyers upon them that said, “We Are The 1 Percent Paying For This, You Are Paying For 1 Percent Of It.” Here are some snapshots of both sides of the flyers:

Full Story Here: Chicago Traders Mock Protesters: ‘We Are The 1 Percent Paying For This, You Are Paying For 1 Percent Of It’ | ThinkProgress.

Scott Olsen ‘cannot talk’ after injury at Occupy Oakland protest

Iraq war veteran is believed to have sustained damage to speech centre of his brain in injury at Occupy protest on Tuesday

Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who was seriously injured by a police projectile during a protest in Oakland, has regained consciousness but “cannot talk”.

Olsen, 24, is communicating with friends and family at his bedside by writing notes, but his injury is believed to have damaged the speech centre of his brain, according to Keith Shannon, who served with Olsen in Iraq.

Olsen is believed to have been injured by a police projectile. He was hit in the forehead in downtown Oakland on Tuesday evening, after marching with fellow demonstrators to protest the closure of an Occupy Oakland camp in the city.

Full Story Here: Scott Olsen ‘cannot talk’ after injury at Occupy Oakland protest | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Occupy Nashville protesters released after second night of arrests

Tennessee state troopers for the second straight night arrested Wall Street protesters for defying a new nighttime curfew imposed by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in an effort to disband an encampment near the state Capitol.

And for a second time, a Nashville night judge dismissed the protesters’ arrest warrants.

Early Saturday morning, Magistrate Tom Nelson told troopers delivering the protesters to jail that he could “find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza.”

Full Story Here: Occupy Nashville protesters released after second night of arrests | The Tennessean | tennessean.com.

Corporate Greed is Running the Country

Video: Senator Bernie Sanders with Ed Schultz

Full Story Here: MSNBC: Corporate Greed is Running the Country – YouTube.

Goldman Sachs Rajat Gupta Indicted

Rajat Gupta, a former director at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, is being indicted on insider trading, U.S. Prosecutors announced today. The indictment was expected after Gupta’s name came up in the trial against Raj Rajaratnam, who was recently sentenced for insider trading. CNBC reports.

“It is a lot of things that we already knew, now that this indictment has been unsealed against Rajat Gupta. One count of conspiracy, five counts of securities fraud, facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy count and 20 years on each of the fraud counts.”

The prosecution says Gupta called Rajaratnam with privileged information likely to impact stock prices: information that Rajaratnam then traded on, reaping illicit gains. But that could become difficult to prove, as The New York Times reports:

Full Story Here: Rajat Gupta Indicted.

Instead Of Unnecessary Cuts To Benefits, Democrats On Super Committee Should Modernize The System

News reports out today suggest that Democrats on the Super Committee are proposing $400 billion in cuts to Medicare—$200 billion in cuts to benefits, and $200 billion in cuts to providers. It’s unclear what this means, and whether it’s true, but one thing is certain: there is a better way.

Today the Center for American Progress is releasing a package of reforms to modernize the payment and delivery system. These reforms are a win-win: they will reduce costs and at the same time improve the quality of care and the efficiency of the health care system. Here’s what we propose:

– Immediately expand a Medicare program that bundles payments together for certain procedures nationwide. Then, completely replace fee-for-service with bundled payments for all procedures and primary care by 2016.

– Immediately implement competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies nationwide, and expand the program to include laboratory tests.

– Require electronic eligibility, claims processing, and payment, as well as centralized physician credentialing.

– Do not pay extra for technologies that are more expensive but no more effective than other available technologies.

Full Story Here: Instead Of Unnecessary Cuts To Benefits, Democrats On Super Committee Should Modernize The System | ThinkProgress.

Income Inequality Reaches Gilded Age Levels, Congressional Report Finds

America’s 99 percent are not just imagining it. The gap between the incomes of the rich and poor in this new Gilded Age is strikingly broad and deep, according to an October report from Congress’ data crunchers.

The study by the Congressional Budget Office, released this week, found that income has become dramatically concentrated, shifting heavily toward the top earners between 1979 and 2007.

And although incomes at all levels have risen some, they’ve skyrocketed for the very wealthiest of earners.

Full Story Here: Income Inequality Reaches Gilded Age Levels, Congressional Report Finds.

Elizabeth Warren Clears The Field, As Last Major Primary Competitor Drops Bid

Flush with money, media attention and national support for her Senate primary bid in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren had perhaps the biggest breakthrough in her campaign so far on Wednesday. She cleared the primary field.

Alan Khazei, the only major primary candidate still competing with Warren for the Democratic nomination to take on Sen. Scott Brown (R), announced that he was withdrawing from the race, according to the Boston Globe.

Khazei, a well-known social entrepreneur, had an uphill battle ahead of him. He trailed Warren in terms of campaign donations. And with the base of the party fascinated by Warren’s candidacy and national Democrats privately cheering on the longtime consumer advocate, Khazei had little to no hope of breaking through.

Full Story Here: Elizabeth Warren Clears The Field, As Last Major Primary Competitor Drops Bid.

FBI “Mapping”: Racial Profiling on a People-Wide Scale

Until the events of 9/11, Black America seemed to be winning lots of battles in the fight against racial profiling. The term “Driving While Black” had become almost a household word due to heavy media exposure of wildly disproportionate stops of Black drivers by police on Interstate highways. Racial profiling had become politically and socially unacceptable, with few public advocates even among law and order Republicans. And then the Twin Towers came down. Almost instantaneously, racial profiling was back, with a vengeance – directed most dramatically against people who “appeared” to be Muslim, whatever that looks like, but with renewed vigor against African Americans, the historical targets. The FBI, which was never a respecter of the rights of darker peoples, repositioned itself to aggressively pre-empt any threat to national security. That means going after people even when there is no evidence of a crime. Although it remained against the rules for FBI agents to launch investigations based solely on race, religion of ethnicity, those factors could be taken into account. It was a loophole big enough to drive a busload of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan through. By asserting that certain racial, religious and ethnic groups – Blacks, Muslims (especially Black Muslims) and Latinos – were more prone to crime and acts of terror, the FBI cold justify all manner of methods to massively penetrate these groups in the interest of national security.

Full Story Here: FBI “Mapping”: Racial Profiling on a People-Wide Scale | Black Agenda Report.

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water?

We were disheartened to learn this week that Nancy Stoner, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acting assistant administrator for water, is an advocate for water privatization. In an interview with Greenwire (Sorry, but subscription required.), Stoner expressed doubt about the federal government’s ability to help provide the public with drinking and wastewater service, citing them as “too expensive.” She then went on to say,

“I think there’s big money in to be made in how to address the water resources needs for our country, particularly when we are going to have population growth, development, the decay of existing infrastructure and climate change.”

Hearing a top government official in charge of protecting one of our most essential shared resources laud a scheme that has been linked to the degradation of municipal water supplies definitely makes us wonder where our government is placing its priorities. Across the U.S., privatization has been linked to deteriorating water quality, rate hikes, job force reductions and poor customer service.

Full Story Here: Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water? | Food & Water Watch.

Labor and Occupy Movements Continue to Stand in Solidarity

The union movement didn’t lead the Occupy Wall Street movement that began on Sept. 17 – but it didn’t take long for many union members and local unions to begin happily supporting it. Earlier this month, the head of the “house of labor,” Richard Trumka, blessed it.

During the first action in Manhattan that had significant labor support – a rally in Foley Square and a march past Zuccotti Park to Wall Street on October 5—there were no waves of colorful matching T-shirt clad workers making their presence very obvious. But there were smaller contingents of workers from many unions, and some individual members of unions scattered throughout the large, upbeat and noisy crowd.

One week later, on October 12, 500 purple-shirted members of SEIU Local 32BJ—which represents 60,000 commercial cleaners along the East Coast from D.C. to Boston—marched into Zuccotti Park in solidarity with OWS. On Tuesday, Local 32BJ spokesman Kwame Patterson said that the march had been planned in solidarity with local members in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., whose contracts expired that week.

Full Story Here: Labor and Occupy Movements Continue to Stand in Solidarity – Working In These Times.

The Military Spending Fairy

by Dean Baker   :-:

Faced with the prospect of cuts to the Defense Department’s budget, the defense industry is pushing the story of the military spending fairy on members of Congress. They are telling them that these cuts will lead to the loss of more than 1 million jobs over the next decade.

Believers in the military spending fairy say things like “the government can’t create jobs,” but also think that military spending creates jobs. Under the military spending fairy story, if the government spends $1 billion dollars paying people to do research or to build items related to the civilian economy it is just a drag on the private economy; however if the same spending goes to military related purposes, then it creates jobs.

It’s not clear exactly how the military fairy blesses projects to make them helpful to the economy rather than harmful. For example, the highways were built in the 50s ostensibly in part for defense purposes. They made it easier to move troops and military equipment around the country in the event of an attack. Government subsidized student loans were also originally dubbed as defense loans since they were ostensibly intended in part to produce more graduates in science and engineering who could help us compete with the Soviet Union in defense related technologies.

Full Story Here: The Military Spending Fairy | CEPR Blog.

The 1% Enjoy 275% Wealth Increase

US Income Disparity, Economic Anxiety Grow: Studies

Income for the richest Americans has grown 15 times faster than for the poor since 1979, a government study showed, as a poll out Wednesday highlighted deep anxiety over uneven wealth distribution a year ahead of US elections.

The income disparity, and concentration of more than 80 percent of US income wealth in the top 20 percent of earners, highlights the volatility in the race for the White House as President Barack Obama’s Republican challengers push plans to reduce taxes for the wealthy as a way to prime the sluggish economy.

From 1979 to 2007, the wealthiest one percent of Americans more than doubled their share of the nation’s income, from nearly eight percent to 17 percent, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report released Tuesday.

“Income after transfers and federal taxes for households at the higher end of the income scale rose much more rapidly than income for households in the middle and at the lower end of the income scale,” it said.

Full Story Here: US Income Disparity, Economic Anxiety Grow: Studies | Common Dreams.

The Patriot Act, 10 Years Later

This week marks 10 years since the Patriot Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The ACLU is hosting a blog series that will address some of the sweeping changes to surveillance laws over the past decade. To learn more about the Patriot Act, visit www.aclu.org/patriot.

This Wednesday will mark 10 years since the Patriot Act was enacted. Pushed through Congress without debate, the massive surveillance bill was hastily passed just 45 days after 9/11, and was the first of many changes to surveillance laws over the past decade that made it easier for the government to spy on innocent Americans.

Since the Patriot Act was first enacted, lawmakers have authorized extension after extension, refusing to make any meaningful changes to the law. This is despite the fact that — according to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) — there are two versions of the Patriot Act: one that the public sees, and a secret interpretation that the government keeps to itself. Senator Wyden has stated, “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.” Furthermore, since its passage, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General has repeatedly found widespread blatant abuse of the statute. Yet, earlier this year, Congress passed a four-year extension of expiring Patriot Act provisions, which are now set to expire on June 1, 2015.

Full Story Here: The Patriot Act, 10 Years Later » Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Obama Admin Seeks Permission To Lie In Response To Freedom Of Information Requests – Even To The Courts

One of the President Obama’s first promises after becoming President of the United States was a commitment to usher in a new era of unprecedented government transparency . Instead the Obama administration has exhibited what may be an unprecedented obsession with government secrecy including blocking numerous law suits by invoking the doctrine of “State Secrets.” The administration has even come up with an interpretation of the Patriot Act which many in Congress who have seen it claim is overly broad and bestows more power on the Executive Branch than was intended by Congress when they passed it.

Unfortunately those in Congress who have seen this document are not permitted to divulge its content, and we, the public, cannot see it because the administration has chosen to classify it as a “State Secret.” In other words, you might be doing something that the Obama Administration believes violates the Patriot Act, but you won’t know it until they indict you for breaking a law you did not know existed (I might be breaking it just by penning and publishing this article).

Now the Obama/Holder Justice Department is attempting to re-write the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), empowering or even compelling government agencies to deny the very existence of records they know to exist if they believe they are legitimately exempted from disclosure. Of course they are most likely the sole arbiter of whether they are indeed exempt from disclosure. In effect the Obama/Holder Justice Department wants to be free to legally lie about the existence of records in response to FOIA requests. Apparently they want to avoid the embarrassment and inconvenience of being officially rebuked by the courts for doing exactly that (lying to a Federal judge), as occurred earlier this year when, in a strongly worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the “Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court.” The solution is simple: re-write the law so the government, in many circumstances, can affirmatively mislead the court.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Obama Admin Seeks Permission To Lie In Response To Freedom Of Information Requests – Even To The Courts.

Oakland Police Critically Injure Iraq War Vet During Occupy March

The Oakland Police Department fired tear gas on Occupy Oakland demonstrators Tuesday night as they marched through downtown, determined to reclaim the camp that officers destroyed that morning. As the marchers zigged and zagged in search of safe ground, authorities bombarded and barricaded the activists into a drawn-out stalemate that resulted in further arrests.

The local police’s use of force seriously injured an Occupy activist and Iraq War veteran.

Scott Olsen, 24, remains sedated on a respirator, in stable but critical condition at Oakland’s Highland Hospital after being hit in the head with a police projectile.

Olsen’s roommate, Keith Shannon, 24, told The Huffington Post that Olsen is still in the emergency room.

Full Story Here: Oakland Police Critically Injure Iraq War Vet During Occupy March.

How the Legal System Favors the 1 Percent

Wall Street tycoons have destroyed the economic security of millions of people around the world—yet they haven’t faced the slightest legal repercussions.

—By Glenn Greenwald

As intense protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street continue to grow, it is worth asking: Why now? The answer is not obvious. After all, severe income and wealth inequality have long plagued the United States. In fact, it could reasonably be claimed that this form of inequality is part of the design of the American founding—indeed, an integral part of it.

Income inequality has worsened over the past several years and is at its highest level since the Great Depression. This is not, however, a new trend. Income inequality has been growing at rapid rates for three decades. As journalist Tim Noah described the process:

“During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth—the ‘seven fat years’ and the ‘long boom.’ Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts, but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20 percent. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes, an outcome that left many economists scratching their heads.”

Full Story Here: How the Legal System Favors the 1 Percent | Mother Jones.

SPECIAL REPORT: Out-of-State Corporate Money Floods Ohio Battle Over Anti-Collective Bargaining Bill

About 60 people gathered at the AFL-CIO office in downtown Columbus, Ohio, to rally and volunteer their time on a sunny Friday evening in early October. They came from a variety of backgrounds: white and black, urban and rural, young and old. Armed with a phone bank and canvassing clipboards, they participated in a campaign to rally Ohio voters to repeal legislation known as Senate Bill 5. If passed, the law would limit collective bargaining rights on issues like staffing levels for Ohio’s 360,000 public workers and require some public workers to pay more in pension and health care costs. The volunteers, dressed in T-shirts and jeans, are labor’s foot soldiers in a political battle attracting national attention and political spending. It is a bitter clash of class, ideology and political tactics, pitting the public sector against the private sector, and Ohio’s labor movement against a web of Republican front groups that refuse to disclose their campaign finances.

Full Story Here: SPECIAL REPORT: Out-of-State Corporate Money Floods Ohio Battle Over Anti-Collective Bargaining Bill | Truthout.

Wall Street is Still Out of Control, and Why Obama Should Call for Glass-Steagall and a Breakup of Big Banks

Robert Reich :-:

Next week President Obama travels to Wall Street where he’ll demand – in light of the Street’s continuing antics since the bailout, as well as its role in watering-down the Volcker rule – that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and big banks be broken up.

I’m kidding. But it would be a smart move — politically and economically.

Politically smart because Mitt Romney is almost sure to be the Republican nominee, and Romney is the poster child for the pump-and-dump mentality that’s infected the financial industry and continues to jeopardize the American economy.

Romney was CEO of Bain & Company – a private-equity fund that bought up companies, fired employees to save money and boost performance, and then resold the firms at a nice markups.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich.

NAFTA’s Problems Need To Be Addressed

When NAFTA was being sold to the American people, it was touted as a job creator. NAFTA was supposed to usher in a new era of prosperity where menial jobs might be outsourced, but good high-end manufacturing and service sector jobs would replace them. Instead, what we have seen is a mass exodus of middle class manufacturing jobs, some of which have been replaced with low-wage service sector jobs.

When problems confront our nation, our elected leaders are supposed to address them. We created a problem for ourselves when we passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early 90s. It was evident to some at the time that it would be a problem, but many believed our elected officials when they said that it would create jobs. Over time, the opposite has proven to be true. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result of NAFTA, but our politicians are doing nothing to fix this problem.

When NAFTA was being sold to the American people, it was touted as a job creator. NAFTA was supposed to usher in a new era of prosperity where menial jobs might be outsourced, but good high-end manufacturing and service sector jobs would replace them. Instead, what we have seen is a mass exodus of middle class manufacturing jobs, some of which have been replaced with low-wage service sector jobs. According to an Economic Policy Institute study, overall, NAFTA has cost us an estimated 682,900 jobs. That number takes into account jobs created as well, but does not take into account Americans who have taken lower-paying jobs as a result of NAFTA, so the actual damage is likely even greater.

Full Story Here: NAFTA’s Problems Need To Be Addressed | Economy In Crisis.

World’s Richest Man Attacks Wall Street Bailouts

The Wall Street bailouts have been a chief target of criticism by the Occupy Wall Streeters.

Now another crusader has weighed in on the issue, saying Washington has given too much money to bankers and not enough to the mass workforce.

The crusader? Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man.

“The monetary and the fiscal policies, which are very aggressive, should go more to the real economy,” Slim told reporters at a conference in Geneva. “It’s going in some way more to the financial economy.”

Full Story Here: World’s Richest Man Attacks Wall Street Bailouts – The Wealth Report – WSJ.

Coffee May Keep World’s Most Common Cancer At Bay, New Research Shows

First it was cutting the risk of depression, now skin cancer — when it comes to the health benefits of coffee, the good news keeps rolling in.

New research presented at an American Association for Cancer Research conference suggests daily joe consumption may help reduce the risk of basal cell carcinoma, the world’s most common cancer.

Women who drank more than three cups of caffeinated java daily saw a 20 percent reduction in risk, while men saw a 9 percent reduction, compared to people who had less than one cup per month. The researchers also tested for a possible connection between coffee consumption and decreased risk of melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma risk — two other skin cancer types — but found none.

Full Story Here: Coffee May Keep World’s Most Common Cancer At Bay, New Research Shows.

Former Goldman Sachs Director, Expected To Face Criminal Charges: Source

Rajat Gupta, Former Goldman Sachs Director, Expected To Face Criminal Charges: Source.

Why OWS Is the Next Republican Boogeyman

Thom Hartmann :-:

The Boogeyman is dead, and Santa is dying.

The Republicans have been, since the 1930s, the party of the Boogeyman. They led the fear-based crusades against Communists, first with the Blacklist, then Joe McCarthy’s hearings, then the twin fears of Communist Mao and the Communist USSR. With the death of the Soviet Union, and the corporate embrace of still-Communist China, 9/11 let them turn their fears to “radical Islam.”

But when President Obama killed Bin Laden, it took the steam out of their movement. And to make matters worse, Obama had earlier gone to Egypt and said, in essence, “Tear down these dictators!” – helping spark the Arab Spring and totally deflating the Republican fear machine, which now sputters along on the fringes trembling about Bachmann’s gays, Santorum’s fertilized eggs, and Perry’s immigrants. The likelihood of Mormon Romney’s presidential candidacy means they can’t even add “God” to their traditional “Gays, Guns, and God” trinity of GOP fears.

Without something or someone to be afraid of, the Republicans are truly lost, wandering in the wilderness. And no matter how hard they try to gin up fear of the “dreaded deficit bomb,” it just doesn’t make Americans jump the way the USSR’s nukes did two generations ago, or 9/11 did a decade ago. So now they’re trying to whip up fear of the Occupy Wall Street folks, but so far OWS has the sympathy of average Americans; it’s just not working for the Republicans.

But the Democrats aren’t doing much better.

Full Story Here: Why OWS Is the Next Republican Boogeyman | Common Dreams.

OWS’s Beef: Wall Street Isn’t Winning It’s Cheating

| Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone :-:

I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with a salesman in the media business. The subject turned to Zucotti Park and Occupy Wall Street, and he was chuckling about something he’d heard on the news.

“I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO,” he said. “I think that’s funny.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Why is that funny?”

“Well, I heard they’re trying to decide what bank to put their money in,” he said, munching on hors d’oeuvres. “It’s just kind of ironic.”

Full Story Here: OWS’s Beef: Wall Street Isn’t Winning It’s Cheating | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

It’s true, bankers really do control the world: study

Here’s a gift to Occupy Wall Street protesters around the world: you now have scholarly proof that banks control the world.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, also known as ETH, have published a paper that argues just 147 companies account for a large chunk of the total economic value of all the transnational companies around the world. No exact dollar figures, but it’s obviously a vast sum.

Among the top 50 corporations, 45 operate within the financial industry. Barclays PLC is the most powerful, according to the ETH study, followed by such well-known names as JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG, and Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

The United States takes home first prize with 24 companies cracking the researchers’ top 50 list, followed by the U.K. with 8, France with 5, Japan with 4, and Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands tying with 2 companies each. Canada has one company in the researchers’ top 50: Sun Life Financial, Inc. secures the 35th spot.

Full Story Here: It’s true, bankers really do control the world: study – The Globe and Mail.

Even Pat Robertson Thinks Republican Voters Are Too Extreme

Today on The 700 Club televangelist and past Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson warned that the Republican primary base is pushing their party’s potential nominees to such extremes that they will be unelectable. While Robertson has said that he will not make an endorsement this cycle, in 2008 he caught flak from many in the Religious Right for supporting Rudy Giuliani. After a segment on Herman Cain’s ever-changing and completely incoherent views on abortion rights, Robertson told viewers that he thinks that the Republican presidential nominee may be unelectable if he or she embraces all of the policy positions of the party’s far-right base.

When even Pat Robertson thinks the Republican Party has shifted too far to the right, you know there is a problem:

Full Story Here: Even Pat Robertson Thinks Republican Voters Are Too Extreme | Right Wing Watch.

OPS:  Even THIS idiot is starting to get it

Japan Tsunami Debris Floating Toward Hawaii

Up to 20 million tons of tsunami debris floating from Japan could arrive on Hawaii’s shores by early 2013, before reaching the West Coast, according to estimates by University of Hawaii scientists.

A Russian training ship spotted the junk – including a refrigerator, a television set and other appliances – in an area of the Pacific Ocean where the scientists from the university’s International Pacific Research Center predicted it would be. The biggest proof that the debris is from the Japanese tsunami is a fishing boat that’s been traced to the Fukushima Prefecture, the area hardest hit by the March 11 disaster.

Jan Hafner, a scientific computer programmer, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that researchers’ projections show the debris would reach the coasts of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Canada around 2014.

Full Story Here: Japan Tsunami Debris Floating Toward Hawaii.

Greg Palast: Goldman Sachs vs. Occupy Wall Street [It´s YOUR money!]

Greg Palast: ‘VULTURES’ PICNIC”

‘In pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores’

http://www.gregpalast.com/vulturespicnic/

Democracy Now! talks to investigative reporter Greg Palast about a controversy in the banking community around the Occupy Wall Street movement. Palast investigates the story behind Goldman Sachs’ recent decision to pull out of a fundraiser for the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union in New York City after it learned the event was honoring the protesters at Occupy Wall Street. The investment bank withdrew its name from the fundraiser and also canceled a $5,000 pledge. Was the $5,000 a Goldman Sachs donation or actually American taxpayer bail-out money Goldman set aside for community banks?

Full Story Here: Greg Palast: Goldman Sachs vs. Occupy Wall Street [It´s YOUR money!] – YouTube.

Wartime Contracting Panel Seals Records for Next 20 Years

Established by Congress to investigate and expose government waste, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan has decided to not reveal its volumes of materials to the public for another two decades.

After three years of work, the commission officially shut down last week, having concluded that the U.S. misspent between $31 billion and $60 billion in contracting for services in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it won’t allow its records to be opened for public review at the National Archives until 2031, because some of the documents contain “sensitive information,” according to one official.

Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, told The Wall Street Journal that the 20-year term “seems like a long period of time, particularly for a commission whose whole purpose is to improve accountability and expose waste.”

Full Story Here: AllGov – News – Wartime Contracting Panel Seals Records for Next 20 Years.

CBO: Income Of The Top 1 Percent Exploded Over The Last Three Decades

The Congressional Budget Office today released a new report on the growth in income that’s occurred in the U.S. over the last three decades. CBO found that, “for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007,” while it grew by just 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of the income scale. “As a result of that uneven income growth, the distribution of after-tax household income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979,” CBO said.

Full Story Here: CBO: Income Of The Top 1 Percent Exploded Over The Last Three Decades | ThinkProgress.

Flat Tax Proposals Are Perpetual Fount of False Promises

Texas Governor Rick Perry is scheduled to unveil a flat tax today, which will bring the number of Republican presidential candidates backing some form of the idea to three and a half.

A 9 percent flat tax is one of the nines in Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. Newt Gingrich supports an optional flat tax, meaning that taxpayers can opt for a flat tax or file their taxes under the current system, which is what Perry has in mind, as well. The half supporter is Mitt Romney, who, characteristically, says he wants a “flatter” tax but has avoided being pinned down.

People want their taxes simpler, fairer and lower. A flat tax promises all three and would deliver on none.

Let’s start with “lower.” Taxes cannot be lower for everyone and still raise the same amount of money. For each dollar your taxes are lower, someone else’s must be a dollar higher. Yes, cutting taxes may cause people to work harder and thus increase government revenue. This hope masquerading as a theory has dominated conservative economic thinking for three decades, despite all evidence to the contrary. If you want to give everyone a tax cut — under the current system, under a flat tax or under any other arrangement — all you have to do is lower the tax rate. This has nothing to do with flatness.

Full Story Here: Flat Tax Proposals Are Perpetual Fount of False Promises: View – Businessweek.

2,000-year-old stellar mystery solved

Astronomers finally know why the first documented supernova was super-sized.

The exploded star was observed by the ancient Chinese in the year 185, and visible for eight months. It was later found to be a bigger-than-expected supernova remnant, 8,000 light years away.

New observations in the infrared show the explosion took place in a cavity in space. Researchers said that this “hollowed-out cavity” of space was relatively free of gas and dust, thus allowing the stellar shrapnel to shoot faster and farther out into the universe.

The star – similar to our sun – died peacefully and turned into a dense white dwarf. It sucked up material from another star, and then exploded in a supernova.

Full Story Here: 2,000-year-old stellar mystery solved – CBS News.

DAVID FRUM: It’s Time We Republicans Finally Admitted That Paul Krugman Might Be Right

Few economists have been more correct about the economic crisis of the last several years than the proudly liberal Paul Krugman.

Krugman spotted the “liquidity trap” early on (since the problem with the economy was too much debt, cutting rates and creating easier money would not get us out of it).

Krugman shot down the hyperventilation about a coming hyper-inflation, arguing that the global labor glut would prevent easy credit from inflating wages.

Full Story Here: DAVID FRUM: It’s Time We Republicans Finally Admitted That Paul Krugman Might Be Right.

OPS: It’s time that FUCKING OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATIC “LEADERSHIP” DID TOO!

Under pressure to make arrests, police and troopers DON’T!

In a tense battle of wills, state troopers and Albany police held off making arrests of dozens of protesters near the Capitol over the weekend even as Albany’s mayor, under pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, had urged his police chief to enforce a city curfew.

The situation intensified late Friday evening when Jennings, who has cultivated a strong relationship with Cuomo, directed his department to arrest protesters who refused to leave the city-owned portion of a large park that’s across Washington Avenue from the Capitol and City Hall.

At the Capitol, in anticipation of possibly dozens of arrests, a State Police civil disturbance unit was quietly activated, according to officials briefed on the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. But as the curfew neared, the group of protesters estimated at several hundred moved across an invisible line in the park from state land onto city property.

Full Story Here: Under pressure to make arrests, police and troopers push back – Times Union.

Perry Adviser Steve Forbes Crafted Flat Tax Plan That Would Have Given Himself A $1.9 Billion Tax Cut

After telling former pizza magnate Herman Cain — proponent of the 999 tax plan — that he’d be glad to “bump plans with you, brother,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is set to release his own flat tax plan tomorrow. While many details of the plan are still unknown, it is expected to take similar form to the flat tax pushed by Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes Media, when he ran for president in 1996. Forbes officially endorsed Perry today and helped draft Perry’s version of the flat tax.

The flat tax proposal will likely fall short of generating the same amount of government revenue as the current tax structure, as most all flat tax plans do. What it will do, however, is provide a huge windfall to wealthy individuals like Forbes, whose net worth is already about $430 million. In fact, Citizens for Tax Justice analyzed the plan Forbes’ proposed in 1995 and found that it would give him a total tax break worth $1.9 billion over 30 years:

Taking Forbes up on his suggestion, Citizens for Tax Justice, a non-partisan research group, has updated its earlier analysis of Forbes’s personal tax savings from his proposed 17% flat tax. CTJ’s new, more “dynamic” analysis looks not only at Forbes’s current annual savings from his flat tax, but also at his long-term tax savings. Over the long term, CTJ estimates that Forbes’s tax savings from his flat tax would total approximately $1.9 billion.

Full Story Here: Perry Adviser Steve Forbes Crafted Flat Tax Plan That Would Have Given Himself A $1.9 Billion Tax Cut | ThinkProgress.

Just The Richest 0.2 Percent Of Households Would Be Affected By The Democrats’ Jobs Bill Surtax

This month, Senate Republicans (joined by a few conservative Democrats) successfully filibustered both President Obama’s American Jobs Act and $35 billion to help prevent public sector layoffs, using the millionaires’ surtax that Democrats had proposed as justification. “The President should drop his obsession with raising taxes,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). But as a new analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice found, just 0.2 percent of households in the country would have been subject to the tax. As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent put it, “any senators — Democrat or Republican — who vote against the individual pieces of Obama’s jobs bill on the grounds that they impose a new surtax on millionaires is protecting the extremely narrow interests of an extremely tiny minority of their own constituents.”

Full Story Here: Just The Richest 0.2 Percent Of Households Would Be Affected By The Democrats’ Jobs Bill Surtax | ThinkProgress.

Four Reasons We Need Less Gas

Americans are driving less and less. Here is what that means for the future of our oil dependence.

As the debate unfolds about whether to build a 1,711-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas, the focus is on the oil spills and carbon emissions that inevitably come with it. But we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do we really need that oil?

The United States currently consumes more gasoline than the next 16 countries combined. Yes, you read that right. Among them are China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. (See data.)

But now this is changing. Not only is the affluence that sustained this extravagant gasoline consumption eroding, but the automobile-centered lifestyle that was considered part of the American birthright is fading as well. U.S. gasoline use has dropped 5 percent in four years.

Four key developments are set to further reduce U.S. gasoline use: a shrinking car fleet, a decline in the miles driven per car, dramatic mandated future gains in new car fuel efficiency, and the shift from gasoline to electricity to power our cars.

Full Story Here: Four Reasons We Need Less Gas | Environment | AlterNet.

What Does the Recession Mean for Our Sex Lives?

As a new report predicts a rise in infidelity, we take a look at contradictory economy-related sexual predictions.

Our enduring recession is going to make men cheat more, if you believe the conclusions of a new study making the rounds this week. Omri Gillath, a social psychology professor at the University of Kansas, found that after exposing men to visuals meant to make them contemplate their own mortality, they were more responsive to sexual imagery. By superimposing mating strategies from our days on the savannah onto modern times, he concludes that as the economy continues to give us “signs that we have lower chances of survival,” we can expect men to be more inclined to stray. It’s a short-term mating strategy, Gillath says, that optimizes a man’s chance of successfully passing on his genes.

The study serves as a reminder not only of how overreaching evolutionary psychology can be, but also how many contradictory economic-related predictions have been made in recent years about our sexual behavior. It started in 2008 with reports that the popularity of sex-related items had gone up. At the start of the recession, sales of lubricants grew by 32 percent, Durex condoms reported 6 percent growth and sex toy retailer Babeland announced a 25 percent increase in business. Sex-related services also got a boost: Dating sites like Match.com reported a rise in traffic and hookup services like Manhunt saw membership boom. This caused business blogger Penelope Trunk to conclude, “So the deeper the recession, the more sex people are having.”

Full Story Here: What Does the Recession Mean for Our Sex Lives? | | AlterNet.

Occupy Chicago Activists Face Second Mass Arrest; Rahm Emanuel Sends Nurses to Jail With Protesters

130 protesters arrested as part of Occupy Chicago, some for the second time, said they were denied phone calls and sleep as Chicago police escalate the fight.

The following article first appeared at The ITT List, the staff blog of In These Times magazine. For more news and analysis like this, sign up to receive In These Times‘ weekly updates.

 On Saturday night, as promised, Occupy Chicago attempted for the second time to set up camp at “The Horse”: The plaza in Grant Park on the northeast side of Michigan and Congress. And for the second time, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) responded with mass arrests, this time arresting an estimated 128-130 people who refused to leave the park and charging them with “Public Peace Violation.” As of 6pm CT on Sunday, around 80 protesters were still in custody.

In some ways this was a repeat of what took place late on the Saturday night and early on the Sunday morning of the previous weekend. Once again, a crowd of Occupy Chicago participants and supporters assembled at LaSalle and Jackson in the city’s financial district (where Occupy Chicago has been picketing since September 23), and marched down Jackson Avenue to Michigan and Congress, where they held a General Assembly and began to set up tents.

Full Story Here: Occupy Chicago Activists Face Second Mass Arrest; Rahm Emanuel Sends Nurses to Jail With Protesters | | AlterNet.

Has the Dying Bank of America Managed to Ensure Its Next Taxpayer Bailout?

Has the struggling financial giant found a way to commit financial suicide and leave taxpayers picking up the bill?

Bob Ivry, Hugh Son and Christine Harper have written an article that needs to be read by everyone interested in the financial crisis.  The article (available here) is entitled: BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit. The thrust of their story is that Bank of America’s holding company, BAC, has directed the transfer of a large number of troubled financial derivatives from its Merrill Lynch subsidiary to the federally insured bank Bank of America (BofA).  The story reports that the Federal Reserve supported the transfer and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) opposed it.  Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has written an appropriately blistering attack on this outrageous action, which puts the public at substantially increased risk of loss.

I write to add some context, point out additional areas of inappropriate actions, and add a regulatory perspective gained from dealing with analogous efforts by holding companies to foist dangerous affiliate transactions on insured depositories.  I’ll begin by adding some historical context to explain how B of A got into this maze of affiliate conflicts.

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